Ingemar Johansson, the Swede who stunned the boxing world by knocking out Floyd Patterson
to win the heavyweight title in 1959, has died. He was 76. Johansson died
Friday January 30th at a nursing home in Kungsbacka on the Swedish west coast,
his daughter Maria Gregner said Saturday.

Johansson was diagnosed
with Alzheimer's disease and dementia more than 10 years ago when he lived in
Stockholm. Known as "Ingo" to Swedes, Johansson knocked out Patterson in the third
round at New York's Yankee Stadium on June 26, 1959, to win the heavyweight
title. He floored the American seven times before referee Ruby Goldstein stopped
the fight 2:03 into the round.

Back home, hundreds of thousands
of Swedes listened to the live radio broadcast at 3 a.m. as Johansson became only
the fifth heavyweight champion born outside the United States. Swedish newspapers
printed extra editions with Ingo on the cover.

"What he did was
the biggest feat ever in Swedish sporting history," his longtime friend Stig
Caldeborn said. It earned Johansson The Sports Illustrated Sportsmen of the Year
and The Associated Press' Male Athlete of the Year honors in 1959, only the second
Swede to win the award.

Patterson avenged the upset loss a year
later in the rematch in New York, knocking Johansson out in the fifth round.
In March 1961, the Swede floored Patterson twice in Miami before being knocked
out in the sixth round of the rubber match. Patterson died in 2006.

Johansson
had four more fights -- all wins, one of them a knockout of England's
Dick Richardson for the European title in 1962 -- before retiring the following
year. He finished his career with a 26-2 record, including 17 knockouts.

A
well-schooled upright boxer, Johansson had a good jab that helped set
up a tremendous knockout right hand dubbed "Ingo's Bingo" and the "Hammer of Thor."

Johansson
went 61-10 with 31 KOs as a decorated amateur. His biggest
disappointment came at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, where he was
disqualified in the heavyweight final for not giving his best. Johansson always
claimed that he backed away in that fight in an attempt to lure his American
opponent Ed Sanders into his right-hand counter. The Swede eventually received
his silver medal 30 years later from the International Olympic Committee.

Johansson
became a businessman after his boxing career. He later moved
to Florida, where he operated a hotel at Pompano Beach and started playing golf.
He also completed the Stockholm Marathon before hundreds of thousands of spectators
in 1985.

Johansson was married and divorced twice, and is survived
by six children.